The Last Embrace (24 page)

But the guard remained unimpressed. “You have an appointment?”

“Yes,” I lied.

He rang the office and gave my name, then listened for several seconds. “The minister is busy.” My heart sank.

I squared my shoulders, trying again. “Tell him that I'm a friend of Miss Churchill's.”

I held my breath and counted: one, two... Exactly ninety seconds later, Lord Raddingley appeared on the marble stairwell. He looked at me blankly, trying to place where we might have met. People like him did not notice ordinary folks like me. “Let's walk,” he said, anxious to get out of the lobby and away from the curious eyes of his peers. I followed him out of the building into the park across the street where pigeons fed by the garbage cans.

He stopped by a bench but did not sit. “How can I be of service? I'm sure I don't have to tell you that today of all days, Parliamentary business is more than a bit frantic.”

“I'll be brief. I'm a friend of Claire's.”

Something flickered across his face. “I've met her socially.” Socially at her flat last night, I thought. But I did not want to overplay my hand. “A lovely young woman.”

I considered challenging his lie directly, then decided to take a different tack. “I need your help. There's a small group of refugees in northern France. Jewish Children, about thirty of them, who have been stranded by the fighting. I want you to arrange their papers.”

“That's quite impossible,” he said in the practiced voice of those used to denying requests. “The government isn't issuing any more visas right now for anyone who does not have an individual sponsor.”

I bit my lip. “You dropped something in her flat, I think.” I opened my palm to reveal the cuff link, holding it back far enough so he could not grab it.

He flinched for a minute and recovered. “There's no telling where I lost it.”

“You know, I'm with the
Post
,” I said, holding up my badge and upping the ante.

“Surely the paper has better things to worry about than gossip mongering. Especially today.”

“I suppose.” I feigned defeat.

He pressed his lips together in a faint, smug smile, confident that he had won. “If you'll excuse me, I must be getting back.”

“Terrible bombing raid the other night, wasn't it?” This was the last weapon in my arsenal, the one I'd hoped not to have to use. “The shelter over on Savoy was very accommodating, though.” Lord Raddingley's eyebrows lifted as I emphasized these last words, letting him know that I had seen everything. “I'm sure Claire was terribly worried about you.” The cuff link was of limited use, especially with no one to corroborate my story. But Claire, if told about the woman in the shelter, could choose to destroy him. He could not afford her wrath—or that of the Prime Minister.

He considered my words for a long moment, then cleared his throat. “I suppose someone really should help those poor children,” he conceded. I exhaled slightly, a tiny bit of air from a too-full balloon. “Give me a few days to get it in place and the visas will be waiting for you at the front desk. And, Miss Montforte?” I turned back. “Don't bother me again.”

I wanted to push and tell him to leave Claire alone. But right now, I needed his help. I looked at him levelly. “Lord Raddingley—don't give me a reason.” Not waiting for an answer, I turned and strode across the park.

“Addie, this is brilliant!”

We were sitting in Teddy's office at the
Post
bureau a week after my confrontation with Lord Raddingley. Teddy fingered the slim packet of transit visas I'd handed him, wide-eyed. I hadn't told him about my visit to Parliament when I'd finally made it to the office late that afternoon, nor the next, not sure that Lord Raddingley was going to keep his word.

Indeed, when I'd gone back to Parliament for the passes two days later, the guard at reception had looked at me blankly. “Nothing, miss.”

“But if you ring Lord Raddingley surely he will know about it.” My voice had risen.

“He's been called away on business,” he'd said, dismissing me. I'd walked hurriedly by Westminster Abbey, past the pigeons that splashed in puddles at its base. My cheeks burned. I'd been duped. I fingered the cuff link in my pocket, which I kept close, even at night. Did I dare to make good on my threat? I could hardly do it now, while Claire was away on assignment with the auxiliary. And humiliating Lord Raddingley, while perhaps an effective bluff, would not help the orphans at all if I acted upon it. I'd checked back at Parliament the following day and after the weekend, my rage growing.

Finally this morning, a week after I'd confronted Lord Raddingley, I'd arrived at the bureau to find a brown paper package with no return address waiting for me. “It was on the mat when I arrived,” Teddy said. I ripped it open and pulled out the passes inside. My heart soared.

“How did you manage it?” Teddy asked now.

I took the passes back from him. “A good journalist doesn't reveal her sources,” I quipped, giddy with triumph. I could not tell him the awful secret about Lord Raddingley—or how I had leveraged it. Teddy would surely be angry, too, that I had used my position at the paper to get what I had wanted. But I had gotten the visas.

I put on my coat. “I'm going to tell Sister Jayne the good news.”

“Addie, wait.” Teddy reached for my arm, a look of longing rolling over his face, as it always did when we touched. But conflict quickly replaced it. “Maybe you should hold off a bit.”

My heart grew somber, hopes doused. Having the passes was one thing, but the children were not out yet. “We still need to get these visas to the children in France.”

Teddy frowned, his dimple pulling downward. “Yes, that's the trick. Normally I'd take these on the next ship that was allowing correspondents and make sure they got to the orphanage. But now that the Americans have gone over, there's no telling when that will be.” I nodded. Correspondents did not have the kind of free access to the continent they'd enjoyed before the invasion. Only a small group of AP reporters had gone over with the troops and sent back dispatches. At least one of them had been killed alongside the soldiers in the initial wave on Omaha Beach.

“We'll manage it,” I said firmly. We had come too far to fail now.

“Perhaps in a few weeks, when the fighting pushes inland, we'll have better luck.” There was no conviction in his voice.

I'd already mentioned the possibility to Jayne, though. I'd gone to the orphanage over the weekend, as much to keep busy as out of concern for the children. With Charlie gone and Claire on her deployment, I was lonely and I couldn't face the long hours in my flat, staring at the map of Europe and fretting over where they both were now.

Sister Jayne had been washing laundry in great tubs, each of the children helping in some way. I reached over to Leo, who was trying to fold a sheet twice his size. Then I rolled up my sleeves to rinse. “You'll soak your dress,” Jayne protested, as I wrung out the first garment.

Ignoring her caution, I took the clothes and began to soap them in the warm water. I had not washed bedding by hand since leaving Italy and the lavender scent took me back. My hands soon grew red and chafed but the ache in my arms was a good one. I looked over at Leo, wanting to tell him:
Leo, we're going to bring your sister.
I knew that I should not. He looked up and smiled, as though reading my mind.

“I may be able to help the children,” I said in a low voice to Jayne instead. Her face lifted with so much hope I instantly regretted it. Lord Raddingley had not yet come through at that point. “It's still just a chance, but I'm working on a connection for some visas.”

“Bless you, Adelia. That's wonderful.” Then her eyes clouded again, too afraid to hope. “Of course, even with visas, it's going to be so hard to get them out.” Her face creased with the experience of one who had taken care of many. “It's no easy thing, moving a group of children that large, especially now with all of the fighting. But we're grateful to you. You've done so much.” She tilted her head in the direction of the kitchen.

“You got a new icebox.” I was not sure what that had to do with me.

“A man brought it for us. Blond chap. Said he was a friend of yours.” Teddy. I'd mentioned to him in passing the fact that they didn't have one. How had he managed to get it so quickly? It would not have been easy, even for him. He cared because I did.

I looked over at Teddy now. He had not said anything about the icebox and I didn't know if I should ask him. He was just that way, helping people quietly without seeking credit. I'd seen him on the street, walking along a line of women queuing for soup before a charity kitchen, pressing coins into their cracked hands and giving candy to the children until his pockets were empty. Despite his admonishment not to become part of the story, he cared and was doing what he could in his own small way to help. He was such a good man. I wanted to hug him and tell him how grateful I was for what he had done. But the one thank-you he wanted was the one I couldn't give—because my heart was still with Charlie.

“You're right, of course, about not getting their hopes up. Perhaps you could see if one of the correspondents from
Le Monde
might have a connection?” He did not answer, but looked over my shoulder with a puzzled expression. I turned. Claire was standing in the door of Teddy's office. “Claire!” She had never come to the bureau, even before her deployment. Her normally crisp uniform was soiled and wrinkled, and hair completely out of its usual order.

I rose and rushed to her. “What are you doing here? Are you hurt?” But she remained silent, her face a blank mask. I had seen that look twice before in my life, the night that Aunt Bess had told me that my parents were missing and the night that the policeman came to the house about Robbie. A buzzing started in my ears, growing to a roar.

Claire crossed the room, her face uncharacteristically grave. “It's Charlie,” she said. The ground seemed to drop out beneath me and I lurched forward, stumbling into her arms. “Darling, his plane has gone down.”

* * *

I'm not sure whether I fell or fainted. When I looked up, I was lying on the floor, Claire and Teddy hovering above me. I vaguely recalled Teddy's arms catching me as I fell and pulling me sideways so I didn't crack my head on the edge of his desk.

“Drink,” Claire said, producing a glass of whiskey, from where I had no idea. I did not take it, but let her raise the glass to my lips, scarcely tasting the fiery liquid.

Then I pushed it aside. “Tell me,” I croaked. “Tell me everything.”

“We were in transit when I overheard a radio dispatch that a plane had gone down deep in Germany, close to the Czech border. The Addie Rose, it was called.”

I looked up at her in disbelief. “He named his plane after me.” He had not told me. But Claire said he had been over Germany. Charlie should not have been that far south. Had he kept that from me so I would not worry more? Or perhaps he had not known.

I looked up at Teddy, who was watching me, and I braced for his questions about Charlie's mission and how much I had known. But he simply cleared his throat. “Let me make some calls and see what I can find out.” Teddy left the office to find another line, not wanting, I suspected, to speak in front of me.

“Charlie...”

“There, there,” Claire soothed as she cradled me, feeding me sips of whiskey. “Look at you—you've even got men rescuing your other men.” I did not respond to her feeble attempt at a joke, but lay back limply, staring out the window at the deceptively blue sky. Charlie was missing. It could not possibly be true. The Addie Rose, he'd called his plane. Because some part of him, despite it all, still believed I was good luck. Couldn't he see that I destroyed almost everyone I touched?

Once upon a time I would have prayed. “Please,” I would say each night as I lay in the darkness, willing God to bring my parents safely to America. At some point I'd wondered if it would it do any good to say it more than once. So I had added more
please
s beneath the flannel sheets that smelled of rose water, a hundred and as many as a thousand, repeating the word late into the night. Then news had come about my mother and father and I had not prayed again. Could I now? It wasn't just that I had forgotten the words—I had simply stopped believing.

The door to Teddy's office opened and he reappeared, jaw set grimly. “What did you find out?” I said, trying to sit up even though the room was wobbly.

“Let's get you home,” he said.

“I want to know,” I insisted. I would not go until I had answers.

But he shook his head. “Not here.” As he looked down the hall furtively I understood his hesitation was about something more than protecting me: German spies were thought to be everywhere and he would not speak in a public place, even the bureau, for fear of jeopardizing operations—and perhaps Charlie himself. He and Claire helped me past the curious secretaries downstairs into a cab.

“I should get back to my duties,” Claire fretted, standing at the open door of the taxi.

“I've got her,” Teddy said, sliding in beside me. I leaned my head against his shoulder for comfort. Neither of us spoke. My mind reeled back to the cab ride I'd taken with Charlie to the hotel and everything that had happened afterward in his room. But the heat that usually came when I thought about such things was extinguished by sorrow.

The cab stopped on Porchester Terrace and Teddy helped me out. But I was able to manage the steps on my own. “He was flying over Munich,” Teddy said in a low voice when we were inside my flat. Without asking, he put on the kettle, then turned back to me. His brow furrowed. “I thought Charlie was part of the unit flying sorties out of Duxford. He should have been over northern France or Belgium.”

“That was a cover,” I confessed. There was no point in hiding the truth anymore. “He was flying reconnaissance missions on his own.” I waited for Teddy's anger that I had not told him the truth about Charlie or the real reason I had asked him to kill the story. But his expression remained calm. “Has there been any word of him?”

“None.”

“The embassy.” My voice cracked with desperation. “Surely they can help.”

“I put in a call but so far nothing. Claire said she would check with her uncle as well. We're working with all of our contacts.” Gratitude rose in me. Teddy had not liked the fact of Charlie, but he was doing everything he could to help. “But crashing over Germany...”

Changed everything, I finished silently. He continued, “They're going to fly over the site to try and check, when they can do it without jeopardizing operations. Of course, we must consider the Germans could have captured him.”

Which would be worse. My stomach turned as the full weight of the situation crashed down on me. “Oh, no.”

“We don't know that, Addie,” he said earnestly, taking my hand. He used the Connally boys' nickname for me now, the one he had always eschewed. Teddy might have been conflicted: Charlie had been his biggest rival for my attention. But his voice was filled with genuine sadness, which scared me more than perhaps anything else. “He could be hiding in the woods. But that's very dangerous territory. I'm afraid you must prepare yourself for the worst.” I buried my head in his chest and wept.